The present invention relates generally to paging systems, and more particularly to two-way paging systems that are adapted to receive voice messages from two-way pagers and automatically deliver the voice message to the intended recipient.
Most paging systems employ receive-only personal paging units. These personal paging units, commonly called xe2x80x9cpagersxe2x80x9d, can receive pages, but cannot acknowledge whether a page has been received or transmit any other kind of information. To acknowledge receipt of a page, or to transmit other information, the page recipient must communicate with the sender using another system, such as a telephone.
In contrast, modern two-way paging systems employ personal paging units that can receive pages and also acknowledge receipt of pages. Additionally, many paging system equipment providers are developing two-way paging systems that can transmit other information, such as responses to electronic mail (xe2x80x9cE-mailxe2x80x9d) messages.
Many consumers of telecommunication and paging services prefer two-way paging systems because these systems are more convenient for exchanging personal communications as compared to one-way, or receive-only paging systems. Thus, paging system equipment providers are working to produce reliable, cost-efficient two-way paging systems.
Generally, two-way paging systems include transmitters for sending pages to the personal paging units, receivers for receiving acknowledgments or other information from the personal paging units, a central controller that is linked to the receivers and transmitters, and a paging switch that coordinates the transmission of pages. In some two-way paging systems, the transmitters send pages to individual personal paging units with a command that a given unit acknowledge page receipt, or send other information, during a certain time slot or period. Thus, the transmitters can command personal paging units to transmit acknowledgments or return signals during different time slots to prevent congestion. Alternatively, a user of the personal paging unit may take some action to initiate a response signal, such as pressing a button on the paging unit. Such a personal paging unit may be programmed to transmit a negative acknowledgment signal if the user has not taken action within a specified time duration. However, these systems only provide for transmission of simple messages from the personal paging units.
The present invention expands the communications from the two-way pager.
In accordance with the present invention, a circuit for use in a two-way pager of a paging system is provided. In one embodiment, the circuit includes: a sensor to receive an analog signal provided by a user; an analog-to-digital (A-D) converter coupled to the sensor; a memory; a control circuit coupled to the memory and to the A-D converter; and a transmitter coupled to the control circuit. In this embodiment, the sensor is a microphone to receive voice messages spoken by the user, which the A-D converter samples and digitizes. The control circuit, which in this embodiment is a processor, stores the digitized voice message in the memory. The user can then transmit the stored digitized voice message through the transmitter to the rest of the paging system, which is processed through the paging system and provided to the intended recipient. In a further refinement, the circuit includes a playback circuit that allows the user to listen to the stored digitized voice message before transmitting the voice message to the rest of the paging system.
In another embodiment, the circuit includes an input device, which in this case is a manually operated keypad. The user can configure the circuit to operate in several different modes. For example, in one mode, the circuit receives and digitizes analog signals as described above. The memory can be large enough to store several digitized signals. In another mode, the user can select one of the stored digitized messages to transmit through the transmitter to the rest of the paging system. In still another mode, the user can select a stored telephone number (i.e., the telephone number of the intended recipient) and transmit a selected digitized message along with the selected telephone number, which the paging system then sends to the intended recipient. In another mode, the user can update the telephone numbers stored in the memory.
In yet another embodiment, the circuit includes a receiver to receive digitized voice messages broadcast by the paging system. The circuit then stores the received digitized voice message in the memory. The user can then forward the received voice message to a desired recipient by transmitting the stored received voice message along with the telephone number of the selected recipient, which is then processed through the paging system and sent to the selected recipient.